🌟 Editor's Note
Welcome to the bi-weekly newsletter which focuses on the AI topics that leaders need to know about. In this AI age, it’s not the knowledge of AI tools that sets you apart, but how well they can be integrated in the context of your business.
This requires a focus on your people and helping them through the change above any AI product you can buy.

Quick links

 AI Browser Wars Heat Up

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT have released Atlas, their ‘AI browser’, hot on the heels of Perplexity launching Comet.

What do these new browsers do ? From a user point of view, the value is to avoid you having to have another page open for an AI interface like ChatGPT. Instead, all the information you may need on a particular topic can be provided in a ‘sidecar’ box on the page you are on - no need to go to another tab to seek out more information.
The potential for these browsers is to be able to perform a transaction without you needing to visit the webpage itself - allowing you to book, for instance, a flight without needing to go onto the airline’s page and enter all the details.

These new browsers are likely to challenge a long established dominance of the advertising market by the incumbent browsers like Google’s Chrome, which 70% of us are using to interact with the internet.

There is an important difference in the data that is being captured by each. For instance, your current browser is constantly building a picture of your habits and serving adverts to you based on them both in search and elsewhere on their advertising network (think YouTube etc.). Currently, behaviour in a browser (your website visits) leads to ads that you see. AI browsers will replace this by giving an answer directly as you interact with a GPT. And with the right ecosystem in place, no need to visit a website to complete a transaction like a booking.

Up to now, your online ‘identity’ that the browser companies see is stitched together by tracking breadcrumbs - cookies, device IDs, pixels, login IDs and companies offering 3rd-party data matching. AI browsers flip the model and ‘identity’ will be set by interaction and intent rather than proximity to an event.

Takeaway for Leaders

AI browsers are not just “another browser”. Their actions as intent-capture platforms are a subtle but important difference to the current world of browsers. With no need to visit websites or to use a search engine, search engine optimisation matters less and AI agent distribution will matter more. As commerce and booking journeys start to go through assistants, we will see that whomever owns the assistant owns the customer. Perhaps the habits of searching the internet the old way will be hard to break, but these new forms of browser are an existential threat to the existing way that we navigate the web and will change the way digital marketing needs to be done.

As a final point for leaders on this - beware those vendors claiming that they can get you into ChatGPT’s returned recommendations in the way that SEO companies can get you higher into Google’s search rankings. It is, at least for now, utter nonsense.

Who Is Putting Out More Content To The Web - AI or Humans?

The acceleration of AI written articles over the past few years has been staggering. Whilst this has been occurring, there have been fears that if AI made content gets out of control, it could overwhelm LLMs, causing them to ‘choke on their own exhaust’.

Despite predictions that by 2026, 90% of online content would be AI generated (Europol), the two are roughly equal. Since November 2024 when AI generated articles took over, it looked like the trajectory would continue, but since then we have seen the humans fight back and the two have been roughly similar since.

This analysis was performed by a search engine optimisation company called Graphite, who analysed 65,000 urls using AI detectors. It is likely that this analysis is a little flawed as catching all AI generated content is tough- and particularly content generated by humans working with AI. But an interesting take away is the content ranked by Google was 86% human written, and 82% of articles cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity were also human written.

Whilst ‘AI Slop’ is one of the buzzwords of 2025, it looks like humans are still preferring human written content, for now at least…..

Link to Axios Article Here

AI Boyfriends - The Growing Phenomena

‘Wiresexual’ is an emerging term for individuals forming relationships with AI chatbots. Frustrated with relationship experiences, or even pessimism about finding a satisfactory partnership (a term becoming known as heterofatalism), almost 1 in 4 young women (23%) and nearly a third of young men (31%) report having chatted with an AI romantic partner.

Whilst the phenomenon is niche and emerging, it raises a few philosophical questions. Putting to one side the societal questions on why people turn to AI companions (such as loneliness, disappointment or emotional labour of an in-person relationship), there are issues that will likely arise from becoming dependent on a ‘perfect partner’ who never challenges them. Human relationships could begin to feel more difficult for instance. Or there may be a greater tendency to trust AI more deeply.

It does raise the question of the psychological ‘tricks’ that LLMs are using (or are being programmed to use!). There are also question marks over the data and privacy risks, and the fact that many platforms that offer these services are opaque, may monetise emotional engagement and may collect and expose sensitive data.

Given the ongoing increase in the volume of providers of these services, and growth in communities such as the reddit forum r/MyBoyfriendIsAI (84k+members and growing), this area is set to grow….

Cybernews Article

🔥 In Case You Missed It…

Would It Be Better To Have An AI Boss ?

In this 2024 study, when humans + AI coach together, the win rate jumps

Academics from Columbia University, Arizona State University and the University of Wisconsin worked with the AI company Inspira in designing a study looking at how an ‘AI manager’ performed against a human manager in making changes to workplace behaviour.

Taking remote employees who worked unpredictable hours and who were asked to change to work specific, predictable hours, the participants were divided into 3 groups. One with a human manager, one with an AI manager (robotic process automations and a specialised chatbot) and the last group by both human and AI manager.

In the 14-week pilot, the AI only coach achieved ~44% success in daily planning, essentially matching human-only (~45%) — but when combined, human + AI achieved ~72%.

Other results in the study had AI, and AI + humans just on par with humans (for example improvements in punctuality) but the overwhelming takeaway was that the complimentary nature of AI to managers provides the best outcome.

^{Takeaways For Leaders}

The implication? AI isn’t replacing managers — it is enhancing them. The study is an encouraging early sign that AI systems can meaningfully support human-led management. This study was narrow, but it does offer enough of a practical insight: AI can be used to scale habit formation and task discipline, while humans focus on vision, culture and strategic interventions. The standout result is that human + AI together outperformed either alone — reinforcing that the future of management likely lies in augmentation, not replacement.

Link to The Study on AI vs Human Management in Modifying Workplace Behavior

🏆 Tools, Podcasts, Products Or Toys We’re Playing With This Week

IBM - 27 of The Most Valuable Use Cases Here
PwC– 7 Domains, 17 sub-domains, 39 processes, 200+ AI Use Cases Here
Google – 1001 Real World Examples Here
Amazon – 230 Gen AI Customer Stories Here
Microsoft – 1000 Stories of Transformation and innovation here

Did You Know? 

Till next time,

And The Rest Is Leadership